A wireless communication device that is in an idle mode in relation to a cellular communication network typically tune in to the base station of the camped-on cell at predetermined occasions, so called paging occasions, to check whether or not it is getting paged by the network. A device may be getting paged, for instance, if there is an incoming call for the wireless communication device.
Typically, when the wireless communication device is in idle mode it handles the mobility autonomously using neighbor cell information provided by the network. If the currently camped-on cell becomes weak and there is a stronger neighboring cell, the wireless communication device typically changes cell to the stronger neighboring cell. During this—so called—cell reselection, the wireless communication device is typically not monitoring paging and, hence, it may miss a page during this time. To prevent that the paging is missed (e.g. due to an interruption in paging monitoring caused by cell reselection), a cellular communication network typically repeats the paging one or more times until the wireless communication device responds.
In a typical cellular communication network, all base stations in a geographical area (e.g. a so called location (or tracking) area) where the wireless communication device has registered, send pages intended for the wireless communication device. When the wireless communication device reselects to a cell in another location (or tracking) area, e.g. due to crossing some geographical boundary, or changes to another radio access technology (RAT), it typically has to update the network on which geographical area it is currently in. This is typically done by a Location (or Tracking) Area Update procedure. Until the wireless communication device has completed updating the location (tracking) area, the cellular communication network will have outdated information regarding in which area to page the wireless communication device. To prevent that the paging is missed due to outdated location (or tracking) area information, the cellular communication network typically repeats the paging in adjacent location (tracking) areas if the wireless communication device does not respond to paging in the registered location (tracking) area.
The paging occasions follow a so called paging cycle, which is typically configured by the cellular communication network node. The paging cycle length typically depends on the applicable radio access technology standard.
Typically, the wireless communication device needs to start the radio each paging occasion, for example, to tune in to the serving cell downlink carrier, carry out automatic gain control (AGC), automatic frequency control (AFC) and update the timing of the serving cell before it can monitor paging.
Usage of a short paging cycle implies more such activities within a given time frame than if a longer paging cycle is used. This typically leads to higher power consumption and, in turn, consequently shorter stand-by time.
Another problem related to paging may be experienced for dual SIM dual standby (DSDS) wireless communication devices. Such a wireless communication device may monitor paging for a first SIM while having an ongoing connection (e.g. a packet switched—PS—connection) for a second SIM. When a DSDS device is implemented with a single radio it is typically necessary to puncture the ongoing connection of the second SIM at the paging occasions of the first SIM so that the radio may be tuned from one frequency (or cell) to another, listen for paging, and then be tuned back again.
Puncturing the ongoing connection will typically lead to a direct throughput loss, firstly due to that scheduled transmissions to and from the wireless communication device cannot be carried out (since the radio is tuned to another frequency/cell), and secondly due to that HARQ (hybrid automatic repeat request) acknowledgements for transport blocks correctly received immediately before the created gap cannot be transmitted (leading to that the network side may retransmit the data even though already successfully received).
Puncturing may also have an impact on residual BLER (block error rate) leading to retransmissions in higher layers (RLC—radio link control).
Furthermore, acknowledgements and/or channel quality reports that are not transmitted due to the puncturing may lead to that the network side applies a more robust MCS (modulation and coding scheme) for the wireless communication device, which leads to lower throughput.
As has been explained above, there is typically a redundancy in the paging which may be exploited by a wireless communication device, e.g. to lower the power consumption. However, it is typically only the available paging occasions that are defined according to the applicable cellular communication standard, while the repetition pattern (number of repetitions and interval between repetitions) of the paging is not standardized. Therefore, the wireless communication device needs to acquire such information to be able to balance power consumption requirements and/or throughput requirements against the probability to miss a page.
American patent publication US 2014/0056197 A1 discloses a method and apparatus for adjusting a wake-up period of a terminal in a communication system. A terminal determines whether a network-side device retransmits a paging message in the area in which the terminal is located. The terminal acquires a time interval at which the paging message is retransmitted and the number of times that the paging message is retransmitted, and adjusts its wake up period to a value equal to N times the time interval at which the paging message is retransmitted. The determination of whether the network-side device retransmits the paging message is triggered, for example, when the terminal enters a new location area, when the terminal is started, or through an instruction input by a user.
As will be understood in the following, there is a need for alternative approaches for triggering paging profiling. Preferably, the alternative approaches are more flexible and/or provide a more accurate result.